2 RAMPS LINKING INTERSTATES OPEN

Two ramps opened this week at the interchange connecting Interstate 595, the Sawgrass Expressway and Interstate 75.

Drivers traveling west on I-595 can now get onto the northbound Sawgrass without exiting at Southwest 136th Avenue and taking a detour. A ramp also opened between the southbound Sawgrass and westbound I-75.

Officials hope that the interchange will attract more motorists to the Sawgrass, which has lost money since it opened in July 1986.

Ridership on the 23-mile Deerfield Beach-to-Sunrise toll road has increased steadily. The most recent monthly tally showed 1,075,926 vehicles in November, an increase of 218,249 vehicles from the the same month a year before.

"There's no question that this connection will provide a significant increase in the number of cars that become familiar with the Sawgrass and use it on a daily basis," said Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the Broward County Expressway Authority.

"The Sawgrass opened two or three years before other (connectors). It takes people time to get used to it. Had the other roads been on a similar time frame, the numbers on the Sawgrass would be much different."

Drivers welcomed the two new ramps, which were opened on Wednesday evening.

"On my trip home, I've now got two stoplights between my house and the airport," said Ron Gardner, a noise control officer at Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood International Airport who commutes 25 miles from his home in Coral Springs. "This is absolutely marvelous."

Gardner said he was using the Sawgrass and I-595 even before the ramps opened.

"It's well worth the $1.50 a day it costs me (on the Sawgrass) to do that. When the (Sawgrass south to eastbound I-595) ramp opens, I'm in hog heaven," he said.

The only ramp not yet open at the 12-bridge, $51 million interchange will connect the southbound Sawgrass with eastbound I-595.

It is scheduled to open by late March, said Barbara Sarff, spokeswoman at the state Department of Transportation.

The completion of the interchange will add another link to a rectangular beltway system around the heart of Broward.

A four-level interchange connecting I-595 to I-95 is under construction and scheduled for completion by late summer.